Michael Northam Interview
Thanks to : Frederic Claisse, Pascal Boué, Patrick Delges, Eric La Casa, Tereza Topferova, Josh Ronsen.
[ interview en français ]

1.)
F : I will ask you to start with your personal background. Where do you come from, how did you come to music?

MN : I was born October 9, 1970 in Murry, Utah, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City beside a mountain. The family came from Indiana, and my father had been involved with automobile racing and was working temporarily in Utah. Two years later we moved back to Indiana, a very flat place. For me this became an important early geographic memory demarcation remembering the forms of mountains in a place where there were none. I grew up around racing and my father's remote control flying of helicopters and airplanes. I was from the beginning somewhat of an eccentric in an eccentric family, I suppose. There was nothing specifically musical about my family. Nor had I thought about sound per se, save for surreal evenings, driving cross country, listening to swing music and my mother's occasional singing practice.
However, I developed a strange fascination with obscure environments, and experiential elements of location - sound, temperature, perspective, qualities of light and atmosphere. The basement of my childhood house became to me a laboratory, in part because of my father's experiments with tools, machines and remote control devices and as well my own transformation of objects and discarded materials. I remember once being given a cassette recorder and making early experiments. At this early age, I recall thinking about how one might go about sharing an experience of an environment, or a half awake perception of reality. I attempted to express this but was not understood. These important associations to experiential locations must be related to the effect of traveling for days overland, which our family did occasionally. Especially important were times spent crossing the great empty landscapes of the North American continent. These immense scenes, often remembered in early dreams, of twilit undulating planes planted seeds in my mind. Later these developed into an understanding initially through visual art slowly developing through experimentation in painting to sculpture, then to video art on through trials of personal actionistic performance work. Through this process of exploration I had a reoccurring interest in sound as the central point of transmitting these internal environments, making coherent an experience of these mysterious places in my mind's eye which fascinated me.

So without knowledge of the art world, coming from nowhere, and without a musical background, I approached sound as more of an extended process of this intuitive manifestation than a musical medium. I began with no equipment. I was compelled to the medium without any idea of how and where to begin. Initially working at Indiana University I created sound works for my video art projects and become more aware of other artists using sound. Then after moving to Austin, Texas and introducing myself to the people of N D - I began to see this being manifested more clearly and as well found openings to a larger international community of artists. My first recordings at this time were done by basic means, for example with a quarter-inch plug directly touching a rusty metal surface in order to get the patterns of electrical cracks and pops. Not until traveling and living in Europe in 1991-92 did I begin to integrate my ideas. This year was, I felt, an initiation as I worked and spoke with many artists who inspired and nurtured in me a germinating seed of realizations that moved me to actualize work. This initiation was 'celebrated' with the project 'An Opening of the Earth' with Martin Franklin and 'Ground' a collection of recordings done at a variety of people's studios in Europe. Since then I have cycled between Europe, Austin, and the Pacific Northwest ever so slowly growing with my intentions. Over the course of the last 10 years I have been letting projects come together as they will, keeping a sensitivity to a longer path that I feel I am on.

2.)
F : What was your first relevant musical (sound?) experience which would later evolve to what you are doing right now? What could be a initial striking event that you remember?

MN : There were a number of different things. Where I grew up in Indianapolis there was a train in the backyard. This train would cause of sympathetic vibrations throughout the house. I found myself searching for some faint buzzing sound phenomena. I eventually found it emanating from vibrating wine glasses in my mother's china cabinet, amazed as the sound lasted sometimes for nearly an hour after a train had passed. This child-like scientific curiosity became a meditation that acted as seed activity, promoting my attraction to sustained resonances found in unique conditions within a particular environment. As well, I have some strong associations with electrical storms, standing outside, trying to conduct the lightning, as if composing the sounds of winds and lightnings. Extreme low frequency roars from a near airports was perceived by me as a literal sound of god. This direct experience of sound within landscapes created for me a myriad of mythological associations. Therefore, at an early age, meteorological, geographical and a variety of other physical phenomenona came to me intuitively as an important source of inspiration. But, I had at that time never associated these inspirations with music or the creation of art.

3.)
F : No?

MN : I associated these events simply as raw experience mixed with notions of an expanding realization of my own existence. Experience of perceiving directly what is there in front of us everyday.

4.)
F : The experience of perceiving then, I think is a key issue in your work as I understand it.

MN : Perhaps I'm attempting to approach a perception of actuality, of what's happening at an increasingly profound detail surrounding any one person, at any one moment in their life. As I see it, generally people are rather insulated from what's happening inside and around themselves. We tend to be rather isolated consciousnesses. Consciousnesses that focus increasingly on immediate personal issues, and we don't see, and often we fear seeing our personal realities torn open to reveal a naked and fundamental reality that we are undoubtedly embedded within. Perhaps these early interests in experiencing directly surrounding environments have prompted me to think about these topics. Naively in trying consider environments directly as experiences, I found that I would adopt non-personal perspective from some remote architectural corner, as a piece of dust floating through a sun beam, or within a crack of wood following landscapes of a tiny world. Just the idea of placing oneself away from a personal perspective into something extremely small, something distant, something left alone and ignored by humanity. This became an inadvertent exercise that developed my sensitivity to the importance of exploring articulate perception, and therefore this has been an essential beginning to my work with sound. Not a theoretical or compositional perspective, but simply an intuitive spark that usually produces something interesting, and often surprising.

5.)
F : So intuition is much more important than say theoretical ideas about composition for instance.

MN : I get confused by notions of theoretical ideas in composition. They seem like some form of quasi-science, something like aesthetic determinism.
It seems that some composers imply that there is a hierarchy of perspectives from which to start creating or judging music. These approaches appear to come from a desire to be protected from failure or a desire to place one's self 'above' others. But in fact, being open to 'dance with failure' with humility is a integral approach to any creative process. I like working from a 'naive' perspective, because I find life a mysterious and constantly unfolding experience. If I had to put a 'theoretical' identity upon my artistic intention, it would be to allow potentials that have accumulated from my life ontology, to crystillize without influence from economic or cultural trends. Contemporary trends of cultural and economic 'lifestyles' seem to act as amoebas devouring what lies in their path. I've observed people slowly burning themselves out, digging a big gutters for themselves to circulate through, ad infinitum. I'm committed to create a life and a work that steadily grows and responds directly to my experiencing of reality. Experimenting and discovering things in an open and perhaps even childlike way.

6.)
F : Could you say that you associate theory with protecting oneself, as a kind of self-protection through theoretical issues. Avoiding exposing yourself and possibly the listener to some sort of risk?

MN : Perhaps. But, to be honest, I don't fully understand the application of theory to the exploring of sound as an artistic medium.

7.)
F : But you seem to have some theories.

MN : I have some notions merely and these are constantly in the process of being challenged and changed. In my own way of speaking I have developed some conceptual beacons. I have an idea I throw out at a distance, as a beacon. And as I move towards a semblance of enacting or realizing this idea I adjust and develop a work in often unexpected ways. You could make the association to the Andrej Tarkowsky film 'STALKER' where the main character throws a stone off into 'The Zone', and follows that stone. Using that as a mechanism of navigation through an uncertain territory that in the film seems to change as the characters walk towards the stone. Similarly I find that my concept of theories in my world change, as I throw out these conceptual beacons and move towards them.

8.)
F : And what would be these theoretical beacons?

MN : These can be a number of aspects of my work: methods of processing, technological limitations, a limitation of a particular source material or even the name of a particular piece. For example, currently I have been throwing around the phrase 'molecular music'. It represents my concept behind a massive superimposition of sound material that creates a sonic metaphor of molecular structure and movement, especially in living organisms. So with this beacon in mind I work on a particular sound. Paying attention to the inner dynamics of formation and frequency/pattern contents, I consider this form based on a perspective of raw content regardless of origin or representation, as a sound object. Then through rather convoluted processes of trial and error I weave the threads of singular materials into larger components of a composition. Observing the soundwork development, being sensitive to the morphological dynamics and finding satisfaction when I find passages that unfold like an organism. For me this is an operation that tests my ability to work with deep levels of intuitive awareness of the material, whether or not the work is unfolding in a way that compliments the intention I find within the sounds. As well, I observe how my attention unfolds while the sound work unfolds, or conversely how my perception folds within the composition's folding. Since I have never been interested in the intellectual consumption of music, I place the intuitive feeling of a piece of music over hyper-intellectual constructions. As these become ego constructions and intellectual toys. It is important for me that my music weaves together an experiential journey of perception as you listen.

Of course this approach changes. I don't feel like I can ultimately plan, or predict what I'm going to do. Usually the material itself tells me what to do with it. And as I work on the material, it tends to evolve. Like a plant, like ivy, sometimes I can't tell what forms will arise before I start. It is often a mystery to me. Sometimes this can be frustrating but nothing can be guaranteed in this life. I can't work on pieces and be finished under deadlines. It is extremely difficult for me to work that way, as I'm learning new things about what I'm doing as I'm doing them. Which I think most people working with sound do. There seems to be a lot of hyperbolic language used to assert one's personal claim in their work. Although, if intimate choices could be revealed, many people ultimately fall back on intuition, relying on uncertainty though they believe they have everything under control. When one is alone in a studio and among an ever growing field of possibilities one feels always more secure by adhering to a limited and a set plan, but there is always something that at any moment will alter intentions. Retrospectively perhaps one collects what happens and creates a reason, but it is clear their intention has followed an uncertain path. I admit easily I follow a path of many bifurcations, challenging myself with changing approaches, that for me has proven to be a fascinating route of discovery.

9.)
F: Tell me more about your idea 'beacon' of 'molecular music', especially referring to the layering and processing techniques that you use?

MN : Since 1998 I have been reading bits and pieces from Rupert Sheldrake and was impressed by one passage that described the process of the complex folding of protein molecules. He attributed his concept of Morphological Fields to the patterns that these particular molecules take, even after being 'flattened' chemically. These molecules tend to refold in the same pattern even though there are millions of possible others. I began to become curious to experiment with methods of composing and processing that could inform sound elements with internal dynamics that poetically paralleled these embedded folded molecules movement within larger systems like cells.
I had come to this idea indirectly with the :coyot: project but specifically went further in this direction of 'molecular music' by creating a piece 'Molecular Knot Phase I' (released on a compilation '9 to 5' from Base records, Linz, Austria). This was based on an acoustic recording with Seth Nehil. We recorded a session of the repetitive striking of a 20 string monochord and miscellaneous other stringed instruments producing arrhythmic patterns. The piece grew by layering and shifting the same recording onto itself until a constant sound mass was formed. The individual layers were equalized in differing ways which produced within the sound mass an incredibly intricate and woven fabric of sound with which I found produced an affect of suspended time and an experience of internal folding when listening deeply.

Later another piece entitled 'From within the solar cave' (to be released from ABSURD, Athens, Greece), was a further exploration of this method. For this piece I was challenging myself by using as a base material recordings made by CO Caspar, John Grzinich and myself which were manipulations of metal and organic objects with contact microphones and were processed live electronically. This rough material was extremely dissonate and noisy with harsh elements and erratic behaviors. I began by separating the original session into a series of segments. With each segment I began by layering the material from 128 to 512 times with adjusting each layered group individually. This spread the rough sounds over time creating a rich material that had many intricate internal elements. The resulting fragments were then arranged, and the best mixes were selected. The process produced three distinct 'movements' that were framed with complimentary sound materials and presented in a final form as a three part poetic journey to the center of a mythical biological cell.

These results, from moving towards a 'conceptual beacon,' have brought me to unexpected forms poetically mirroring dense masses of inter-relations at work within an organism. The combination of expanding the time dimension of the pieces and their inner details produce for me an opportunity to experience perhaps sound as an energy portrait of microcosmic proportions. The massive erratic flux, that operates on an organizational system beyond our abilities to digest wholly, is reflected in the sound works themselves.

10.)
F : Which materials do you like to work with? You seem to be fascinated by meteorological events for example.

MN : I've seen my pursuit of sound material sometimes channeled by a notion of using and exploring different symbolic elements - earth, air, fire (energy or electricity), water. Although generally I simply take what I find nearby with the focus on finding complexity within the material I choose to record. I consider meteorological phenomena a beautiful example of a complex system that surrounds us. Every time you look up and see clouds in the sky, you're reminded of the massive scale of movement above, of the fluxing particles surrounding us all the time, everywhere. For me this is obvious and has always been a powerful attraction to try to understand and be sympathetic to. Not necessarily consciously, but I seem to return to it, because it always reminds me of our relative insignificance. Although many are insensitive to this and see these forms as basic and mindless systems. The choice remains either to fall back and allow these dominate habits to blur the details of perception or to look closer within the ordinary to see how little of it we can comprehend.

Back to sound, for example, I have tried to develop rather basic systems using motors and wires to create incidental harmonic clouds that constantly drift in time. 'Harvest of vectors' [see photo of installed wires], was an installation that I had created in Austin, Texas in 1998 with help from John Grzinich and Carmen Resendez. There we created a system of motors playing many long piano wires that were connected to each other. Any change influenced all the wires' tension and created dynamic shifts in sound around the room. Over time the incidental harmonics would drift by themselves.

The development of these types of systems initially came out of the practical necessity of working alone. I wanted the sound of many people playing many sounds at the same time. At this time I didn't have any multi-track recording equipment. Making installations in my studio developed from a pragmatic method to record complex, multi-layered acoustic sounds while being alone. As well, I early on trained my ear to search for sound materials that are as complex acoustically as possible. Now with better equipment these exercises have helped my compositions come together by embedding details to interlock within processes flowing through the content of the work. I find in my way of working, singular sounds (striking, 'playing', banging) made by myself become sound events too representative of direct human actions, and, for me, become distracting. I'm particularly interested in creating a form of music that holds something new without distinct references-even for myself as the creator. I go about this through the use of currents or streams of sound that cross, mix and breakdown like chemicals. As well, I am uninterested in virtuosity and the representation of a human choices within compositions - my tendency is to work not from my choices but choices revealed in the sound material itself. Currently in the studio I enjoy creating a wide palette of material from whatever means strike me; from recordings alone, from processing, layered raw material, and recently with working overtones from electronic devices and my own voice. I find that sounds can be tapped easily for interesting qualities, and with the use of digital mixing I can go deep within the subtle weaving of sound. I must say that I find that it is a seductive myth for many composers to think that acoustic sources alone are in some way superior to other processes - the act of taking sounds by microphone, unavoidably filtered through the recording process and presenting them through unknown playback devices is an incredible process of alteration. Regardless of source, the experience is in the interface of some sort of speaker and the ear, this is what I try to concentrate on. I challenge myself to find depth and life with an unusual assortment of sources.

11.)
F : Would you say that your music tries to simulate or emulate complex systems or an idea of complexity, like fluxes and turbulences.

MN : I would say that this has become a fundamental aspect. Because I'm interested in reminding myself that we as humans are in the midst of very violent and complex systems all the time. We're generally insulated from these. But for a simple example, if you look into your palm, and you consider the cellular structure that makes up the inside of your hand. It's an amazingly complex system that's happening simultaneously, on many different levels of organization. Shifting between layers of perception related to observation we find our bodies, our consciousness, our feelings simultaneously experience reality in different ways. Now as we're talking together and as the reader reads this text. So it is a fascinating exercise to shift around within this myriad of processes going on simultaneously. But without effort our mind returns to focus and simplify creating stable concepts of forms from the incredible flux that we ourselves are made from. Therefore I find it an important practice to become increasingly aware within the midst of this incredible mess of energy and material, interacting with itself as a process to liquidate the solid core of our egos. For me then the play of being comfortable moving through the different planes of this perpetual drunken universe becomes manifested when I create my music. I emulate these systems I perceive by both the choice and creation of raw sound material and through the process of composing in itself. Therefore I believe my work to be a result of creating during a state of awareness while embedded in a momentary flux of the 'belle confusion' surrounding us.

12.)
F : And how do you think your music succeeds in emulating these systems ?

MN : I feel that my work is a tool that an active listener can utilize as perhaps a sonic tool for meditation. Or perhaps, as I have thought of it, as a type of 'sound compost'. A nutritional substrate or source of perceptual raw material. I have had comments from friends who are painters and dancers, that they have enjoyed working with my sound as medium within which to work. Particularly the dancers, who are sensitive to moving within energetic patterns, experience my work as a space wherein they can work with their bodily thoughts. So in a way it's an attempt to create a sound space that can perhaps resonate with the listeners' own internal uncertainty and internal spaces. Perhaps to bring their own eidetic space and latent perceptions into focus.

13.)
F : So you're asking a lot of your listener.

MN : I'm not asking anything, actually!

14.)
F : Yes, but you're saying that your music requires an active participation of the listener in order to be complete.

MN : I wouldn't say that it 'requires' it. It's simply like any other thing in this world, a person can utilize things passively or they can utilize them actively.

15.)
F : Yes.

MN : I don't require anything from anybody, but if a person wants to actively experience something, not only my music, it could be anybody's music or artwork, it's obvious to me that the more deeply they allow themselves to enter by listening, exploring a piece with different listening environments, creating special spaces for themselves to listen, special conditions, of course they're going to get something more from it. But, if a person sits back and passively hears something they're going to hear the lowest common denominator aspect of the work (something that 'entertainment' music caters to). Therefore their perception passively lets it go past them, and they will consider it as simply inconsequential noise - or sometimes irritating. But this has got more to do with their own states of mind and consciousness than it has to do with my music or anyone's music [per se -CUT]. I feel like I try to create states that are receptive to whatever the person's attitude is that comes to it. My music seems to reflect the state of mind of the person listening to it. This has been a fascinating observation over the last ten years of doing this music. People find what they want to find in it. It gives them a chance to step outside of themselves or inside. Sometimes people don't like this predicament.

16.)
F : I'd like to shift to :coyot:, and to ask you some questions about it. Which situation does it have within your work ? How is it important for you, where did it come from?

MN : Well, :coyot: is based on an installation 'Filtering the current', that I presented in Finland, in the autumn of '98. This project took place on Suomenlinna Island near Helsinki. My recordings were rich and complex harmonic aeolian sounds from the wind harps that where the principal feature of the installation plus other sounds from the coastline, around the island and from within a massive cannon barrel that was producing a great low frequency sound. A year after the installation and after settling in Oregon, I finally acquired all the components for a studio. I wanted to dive into a new solo project, with a limitation set being sounds only from this island. As I began to work, I realized I wanted to develop a piece that was poetically reflective of the internal dynamics of meteorological systems. I was remembering my experience on the island, listening to the constant patterns of the seven aeolian harps I had installed experiencing the realization of some massive meta-patterning to the flux of harmonics that were produced from the slicing of giant spiraling eddies of the wind coming off of the Gulf of Finland. I knew I didn't want referential, direct representation of a this meteorological experience, nor of this location. I wanted to push it further to become more of an evolving piece closer to what I felt were essential dynamics of turbulence. And that's not to say more pure, but something more poetically essential. During this piece I took a lot of inspiration from the works of Roland Kayn, and how his pieces evolve in almost an unconscious natural pattern like a leaf system, of patterns that your attention shifts between. These patterns are unfolding, again like an organism. With :coyot: I wanted to make a connection between these so-called inanimate meteorological circumstances of wind and to a living system. This is something that I have been returning to lately. While constructing :coyot: I began using an intuitive system, not unlike the so-called 'cybernetic systems' of Roland Kayn, but with a visceral and mechanical correspondence not automated. Layers upon layers, each layer echoing a part from the other, and having it shift in reflection with the other. Listening over and over again, changing, and adjusting until I really felt like every component was turning and churning on its own accord. Without necessarily the idea of my compositional gestures being an important issue. I wanted to get really as far away from that as possible. So certain elements came and rose and appeared in a way that I felt was really just a natural reaction to the sound. The material itself was slowly teaching me what to do with it. I had a lot of interesting contact with Giancarlo Toniutti during this time of composing, especially concerning the idea of subtle perception of internal, morphological components and how they relate with each other. I feel that I was wanting to approach a deeper level of perception within the work itself. So it became something very messy in a way at first. I was making many series of rough mixes, and throwing out a lot of them. Slowly, from the rough mixes, putting these mixes together, and creating more refined mixes and then, finally certain crystallizations of structure appeared. I framed and strung these together. It appeared to grow slowly like a plant. Then, finally, it got to the point where I felt like it was living on its own accord.

17.)
F : Which difference would you make between :coyot: and 'Breathing Towers' for example.

MN : The difference between a studio piece and a field-recording.

18.)
F : Yeah!

MN : Well, studio pieces are to me more like paintings. where I'm trying to work on the content of the painting until I feel like it on its own is living in its form, whereas something like 'Breathing Towers' is more like my photography, where I'm capturing some phenomena, as I experienced it at that moment. And I'm experimenting to see if it translates into sound or more perhaps a 'ready-made' composition. Because I feel, just like photography, simply the capturing of some sound phenomena and presenting it - often one forgets that the process of recording and presenting it through somebody's speaker totally alters the piece itself! So does the framing and printing of the image. With that in mind, 'Breathing Towers', went through a lot of listening to it, considering if it was worthwhile to be by itself. After some debate, I felt that that was fine by itself, because the phenomena expresses itself through different playback devices in a fascinating ways. With this piece, it had its own internal dynamics, and I felt like that it expressed itself well. I simply framed it and let it be.

19.)
F : Didn't you have this temptation with the material you gathered on this Suomenlinna Island in Finland, to leave the material to itself and, let it express itself simply.

MN : I have the feeling that something might happen in that way in the future, but the space and my experience at that place and some poetical realizations of the elemental phenomena of air lead me to the studio. The process of 'creating' :coyot: was an important and logical consequence carried beyond the act of being there and making the installation itself. The process of creating things, for me is not necessarily again with a theoretical basis. As projects present themselves to me I sense what is important to be done, and why I get myself into the process of creating a piece. Projects feel as if they just come through me and so :coyot: was that simply, a realized process of reflecting on a particular time-period of a recording. Additionally the consideration of some important changes of my life during this time-period. I consider if a sound work is to be done it must an important process, for me to undertake it fully.

20.)
F : Return again to this idea of eidetic space, what do you mean?

MN : Eidetic space. is another 'conceptual beacon' perhaps springing from these childhood environmental perceptions. One thing that I found interesting about music in general is what does a music do to a person's internal perception. This is why I have felt close always to Francisco Lopez's ideas of acousmatic music. For example his use of complete darkness during his performances, or blindfolded performances, because that immediately turns on a person's. inner awareness and starts creating all sorts of internal perceptions about the sound material. And I find that this is something that is both difficult to talk about, but at the same time rather integral to me. I find it as one of the most important aspects of this type of experimental music, that is, how sound affects a person's internal space. So the experiencing of eidetic space, or the articulate perception of a person's internal world, is something that I'm interested in triggering. My use of continuous, dense harmonic or textured sounds has for many millennia been in many cultures used as a tool for initiating an internal unfolding of consciousness. So, in my way, I create these currents because it facilitates this internal process, but I am also committed to embed within a myriad of details and movement so that the masses of sound to give rise to an exceedingly intricate tapestry - giving gifts to the careful and open listener. I find music that doesn't work with these currents, that works maybe in contrast to them. For example what I think of as 'intellectual music' being music operating around a person's abstract conception of space and time and reality, and how it should or shouldn't unfold. Becomes more about psychological games of hierarchical systems of perception, often times becoming an esoteric intellectual sport. Sometimes I find music like that very tedious, because it operates so much on the composer's premeditated presentation of their particular intellectual capability, the superficial form of their personal musical language, and I find that particularly 'ego-centric' and uninteresting. I however tend to move more and more towards this music that operates in a way that points away from the creator towards something not fashioned with cultured skill but perhaps that that seems to come from something in touch with an open dialogue with greater mysteries. A humbled music that devours the particulars of the artist who is creating it. This is something that I find people have a hard time being honest about and is often criticized with empty sarcasm.

Understanding a little of how the experience of eidetic space is embedded in my music has shaped the way I work to become sympathetic to 'meteorologic/geographic-molecular/cellular' forms. Opening an internal ear for creating a space to conduit, not emotional human feelings, but to an experiential appreciation of macro and micro forms both organic and inorganic. Internal perceptions of moving energistically through cellular forms, through solid materials, or through geography, or through geologic time. And certainly not in a generic 'space music' sense, but actually trying to approach an artistic articulation of our contemporary capability to conceive of these great and small places. We're seemingly capable enough to do this in scientific terms. History tells us that when art and science were closer this was not unusual for humans to make these associations. Modern art has approached these concepts in various forms, but the current religious role of science in our societies have almost turned poetical associations in to a form of sacrilegious act. I think sound has an incredible and obvious potential as its essence is based in vibrational forms. Which, as we know, is the medium in which we experience the universe. In fact it is one of the clearest analogies creating a pathway of understanding to our own consciousness. This is why I choose specifically to stay away from human musical structures, because they seem to adhere the sound to a referential anchor. I want to keep looking for forms that arise from non-referential material as these embrace what 'civilized' humanity often discards as inconsequential. But of course, I admit that music in many forms, representational and not, lends it self to a myriad of wonderful explorations in perceptual awareness. I have simply been brought to my way from the circumstances of my life, but I am an avid listener of many other forms of music.

21.)
F : What is importance of Europe and your having come to Europe many times?

MN : Well my aesthetic start with sound really, as far as actually recording my own projects, started when I was traveling and living in Europe, in 1991-92. I had experimented a lot on my own in the United States, but as far as getting a coherent idea of what I was doing, and working with other artists has always started in Europe. I find that there seems to be a level of artistic intention that can be seriously articulated with people I meet in Europe that is much more rare to find in the United States. And so, since 1991, nearly 30% of my life has been in Europe. I find that my traveling, approximately every two years, spending between 2 and a half to 6 months at a time has been an important pathway of development of ideas and confidence in connection to my sound work. I find that I am becoming a hybrid - influenced by both the raw landscape and natural world of North America and the cultural and intellectual climate of Europe. The cycle has also been a source of stress for me as each trip has been accompanied by a process of moving, extracting and massively changing my life in the US to the point that I hardly feel at home when I am 'at home'. Nearly every trip I have returned to the US with nearly nothing, having to start once again to find work and reconnect myself, as well dealing with a sudden shift from being somewhere where I am constantly meeting people involved a focused interested in thinking about sound as art - to all together different communities in the US that are struggling more with the social conditions of surviving as artists in a culture that does not support us. My confidence seems to become jarred in the current American culture and I seem to go into hibernation there. Symbolically each trip to Europe challenges me to re-assert myself and my path as an artist. Though this cycle of bouncing between Europe and the US has been rather important for my development, I find that I need to begin to strategically locate myself more permanently somewhere so that I can allow some stabilization to ground myself and thereby move my work into another level. The question is where - US or Europe? I am beginning to think that a longer stay and an extended artistic project in Europe would be important for me, but there remains the question of where and how.

22.)
F: "The stomach of the sky" and "The absurd evidence", both released under the duet name mnortham and jgrzinich. What were you attempting to do at that time?

MN : I find that this phase of working was marked by desire of mutual support. During the time of developing the recordings for 'the stomach of the sky' I was alone and in Seattle. But I found support from John Grzinich when I returned to Austin and we prepared for a journey together to Europe. During this time in Europe there was an opportunity to finish 'the stomach of the sky' in Koblenz at Bernhard Gunter's studio, so we took this chance and completed the work with our recordings from that trip. Later John had been working alone at my house in Austin with my studio. This material became the bulk of 'The absurd evidence' except for one element that was from my work. We both learned, I think, that composing is a solitary task. That really only one person can be intimately aware of what is happening over the course of developing and finishing a piece, but we were at that time open to the idea of sharing the final result. Though after the second work we knew that it was best to work alone in the future. I found then that I was on a path that needed to focus directly on notions of intuitive composing to refine and develop my sometimes eccentric ideas without the interruption of having to explain reasons to someone else. Often there are process during creation that operate on a non-rational basis, the development and fostering of these motives helps an individual artist find the qualities of their own voice. By diplomatically rationalizing choices a work and one's development can be severely compromised. I think after this point of ending this collaboration with John I began to embrace more closely my own methods, going further in a way that might have been halted prematurely before. I feel that this process is one of maturity of personal vision, an all together normal process.

23.)
F : How do you view other collaborations within the context of your work?

MN : Collaborations have in general been important as I have always been interested in opening dialog with other artists. For me it is a living school. Glimpsing into the foundations of each others thought patterns, seeing what can come from it. In the beginning of my working with sound it was necessary for me to work collaboratively. as I had no studio. When I was traveling in Europe, people like Martin Franklin of Tuu or Rudolph Eb.er from Shlimpfluch, Guido Hubner of Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, also Marc Behrens and C.O. Caspar - these different artists early on allowed me to work with them or even let me use their studios. So, therefore, it was at the beginning, somewhat always of a collaboration in different environments. Later on, then my experience with John Grzinich developed more of a shared 'heuristic dialogue'. We were learning our own musical language, our own sound language, our own creative desires, making foundations for intention. We were learning that at the same time as we were collaborating. Playing with notions of a 'band project' (ERG) and something like an organization (Orogenetics) - these both included as well Seth Nehil and Josh Ronsen. We perhaps, at this beginning phase, needed mutual support. As we developed, I began to see that we needed to find our own ways of working first. I can observe as well, that this is a difference with working with artists in Europe and artists in the US. It perhaps reveals a different approach to artistic confidence and the security of one's individual perspective. After an end to this period with John, I soon met and worked a little Slavek Kwi and Michael Prime, and entered into written dialogue with Giancarlo Toniutti. I realized that there are forms of collaboration that can be approached more directly through sympathy and via opening wider the channels of communication. This I feel is absolutely necessary, if a collaboration should be meaningful, that both parties must be interested in augmenting each other's activities. There must be some form of transparency and mutual respect that is focused on embracing the qualities of the other that you see clearly as a compliment. As well with my unexpected sessions with Colin Potter and Darren Tate of ORA resulting in the 'amalgam' LP, I saw that the work was a meeting between artists that seem to want specifically an influence of other elements into their own work. I saw this as a rediscovery of meaningful collaboration formed not from circumstance but something more oriented around a process of appreciating each other's way of working directly. And wanting new types of influence, and seeking them out specifically.

24.)
F : Can you explain how you present your work in a live context?

MN : Well the live work has always been strange, because it is for me always a compromise from the work I do in a studio. As well, I tend to do more performances when I am traveling in Europe then in the United States. There seems to be a viscous switch between studio time and preparation for a live piece. Some of the processes developed during the studio work do, however, flow nicely into developing a live piece, but I think that I feel I am radically altering my approach. I am not happy with doing straight mixes from pre-recorded material like some do. So I try to develop small sound devices that can generate different elements to mix within a substrate of recorded material. Therefore these performances become something between improvised music and tape music. The form is based on creating dense harmonic atmospheres, shifting the internal dynamics of these harmonics and improvising with acoustic and amplified materials to compliment the sound field. I have noticed recently that the live work becomes a type of articulation and flux of energy patterns, dependent in part on the place that I'm in. The piece becomes a transparent reflection of the energy of the surrounding atmosphere. This was noted to me by a friend in Oregon that witnessed a performance and remarked that the feeling was akin to the 'holding of space' necessary to their work as a teacher of yoga. I see a relation to this as well to my earlier experiments with actionistic performance, when I would supply myself with different raw materials and substances and begin moving through an area, shifting, changing these substances in relation to my body and the space, over the course of sometimes many hours - where the most important element was to maintain a hold on the overall atmosphere of the place. The difference now with a live performance, in the context of a concert, is that I am manipulating the vibrational energies that are produced from certain objects, sound devices, and recordings must work as a total entity. I have developed an approach to live processing and mixing that acts as momentary translator of the energy within the environment. So, when I find myself in bars filled with superficial and inattentive people my work becomes more confrontational. Whereas when an audience is receptive, then the live work becomes more subtle and richer in form. I am beginning now to become a bit more picky to the events that are organized and want to avoid the more confrontational scenarios, as I feel these dynamics contort my work in an uncomfortable way. In receptive environments, people have expressed to me that they experience the work as a conduit of fragile energy through the space.

As well with group performances there are much wider dynamics that I become open to. John, myself and sometimes others would play together as the project ERG and in other group experiments. Here I find that the crucial exercise is to listen and forget yourself. Thinking more of each one's role as something of a single element in a forest of sound - responding to the elements without thought to 'individual played form' but to more an energistic condition. One interesting document from these experiments has appeared in the form of a Alial Straa Cdr entitled 'tunnel/stairwell'. With the ERG performances we often worked with pre-recorded skeletons that would help us work through different fields within which we would explore. But these projects ended with my parting from Austin and closing the period of collaboration with John.
Recently I have had the opportunity do some live duets in London with Michael Prime, a session with one formation of Morphogensis, and a trio in Dublin with Michael Prime and Fergus Kelly. These were all beautiful processes of fragile listening sessions where we all had individually our own mixing set-up and operated at a distance physically (something not done before with ERG where we were often attached to the same mixer). I think that's very important while playing with other people in this kind of music - exploring sound as energy with each individual with working separate systems but connected by concentration to the whole. I am interested in the future to conduct and compose for larger ensembles of people working with both acoustic materials and electronic processes to create works that are not simply improvised pieces but orchestrations on a more massive scale of development and unfolding. This simply seems impossible with the limited means at the moment, but perhaps someday. In Oregon, there has been some group sound improvisations with up to even 8 or 9 people changing locations within a room backed by subtle processing and resulting in some nice undulations of events. These have proven to be some interesting exercises of listening as well.

25.)
F: I would like you to explain why René Daumal is so precious to you, and if you see a link between his writings or ideas and your musical or pictorial work? Are there other literary or artistic figures that have an important role, thematically, technically, etc., in what you're attempting to do?

MN : I discovered René Daumal from a friend who pointed out a reference to his writing on a Ghédalia Tazartès record 'Check Point Charlie'. I read first his 'Night of Serious Drinking' in one go during a journey through small canyons in a park one day in Austin, Texas. I greatly enjoy his sharp exploration of assumptions exposing hidden dogmas in a constant struggle to 'remain awake'. His writings also present an excellent example of a particular awareness of the importance of paying attention and exploring deeply one's internal 'eidetic space'. As his thoughts developed in his writing from his youthful group 'le grand jeu' through later into his independent studies of Sanskrit and eastern aesthetics, I feel a sympathetic parallel to an attraction to traditions of further depth in thinking free from the ever oppressive fragmentation of subjectivist positivism. This is a difficult topic for me to explain as I am not fully skilled as a writer, but I find empathy in Daumal's later development towards expanding thought, by more comprehensively weaving in an experiential meaning without the quasi-rational filters of our western gluttonous pursuit of arbitrary subjective pride in some personal identity. Therefore I find many parallels to his pursuit in literature to my interest in sound - though I the latter is much more un-graspable with the mind. In Daumal's book Rasa he spends a lot of time talking about the aesthetics of art (specifically dance and music) in India. And although, unfortunately, Indian art seems to have been relegated into a recognizable form by the western mind by now, at the time of Daumal's writing it was still a challenging form for Europeans. Daumal was in part responsible bringing the first tours of Uday Shankar's dance company and musicians through Europe and the US. In Rasa he reports and comments on what he overhears at a performance in France, "I was unable to stop my ears with enough alacrity to avoid hearing a few words with which the arthritic bourgeoisie publicly cleared its throat (an assuredly learned view): "The music of these people babbles, like their philosophy, always the same measure or the same proportion, for hours or for centuries, all the same monotone." I agree, Madame, it's always the same object that compels that resonant music and philosophy: open your eyes before that which you actually are. Have you seen only a desert of boredom? Whose fault is this?" In general René Daumal has been a writer that for me has put notions into words that continue to inspire me to become bolder with my steps towards actualizing my own creative work. Of course there are other sources of literary and artistic inspiration as well, such as Max Ernst, Alejandro Jodorowki, Lama Anagarika Govinda, a variety of Tibetan texts, W.Y. Evens Wentz and always I am discovering more.

26.)
F: And, finally, a question that can be asked in any interview and is still interesting to ask: what are your current projects and activities?

MN : Currently I have begun work on a piece inspired by ancient Irish mythology. I am finding some energistic links between their thoughts and Tibetan and American Indian cosmologies. Roughly the idea has been centered around my current conceptual beacon 'SIDH' which is a Gaelic word meaning the 'dwelling of the otherworld'. I am interested in this topic not specifically for the overt 'metaphysical' implications but because I am pursing a poetical understanding of how human perception interfaces with eternal phenomena. It is perhaps about struggles to make sense of the 'absurd' through creative means of looking into the cycles of coming into being and exiting. Of the ultimately experiential Other. As well exploring the borderlands of perception where one can not be completely aware, where one questions illusions of absolute awareness.
For this project I am working with sounds that I have gathered around the western coast of Ireland (in the Burren and areas around Galway, Doolin and Kilarney). Using systems based on my idea of 'molecular music', including an extraction elements of my own overtone singing inside of dolmens.
There is some chance that I will be returning to Europe. I will begin preparations for this possiblity. In the mean time I stay in Portland, Oregon helping other friends realize sound projects, enjoying the forests, and contemplating the next steps, while trying to stay above the poverty line...